The Harper's Quine (14 page)

‘She still had the land,’ Ealasaidh said. ‘She said time
and again, if she could get to Rothesay to sign a paper, we
would have money.’

‘I wonder where the deeds are,’ said Gil.

‘Maybe in her box,’ said Ealasaidh. ‘But we will not have
the key. I have never seen it opened.’

The box itself, when dragged from under the shut-bed,
was sturdy enough, but the lock was no challenge to Gil’s
dagger. He said so.

‘Then if it will help you, open it,’ said the harper.

‘You are certain that you wish me to open it?’ said Gil
formally. The harper, recognizing his intention, bowed his
head regally.

‘I am certain; he agreed. Gil brought out his dagger, and
was turning the box so that light fell on the lock when the
harper put out a hand.

Wait,’ he said, head tilted, listening. Ealasaidh looked
from him to the window, then rose to go and look down
into the yard.

‘Campbell,’ she said. Her brother asked a question.
‘Eoghan Campbell, the same as brought the word to Bess
the other night. There is Morag nic Lachlann getting a
crack with him across the way, he will be here in a
moment.’

Gil sheathed his dagger.

‘Let us put this out the way, then,’ he said. ‘Euan
Campbell? You are certain it is Euan and not Neil? And
that Euan brought the word to Bess?’

‘How would f not know him?’ said Ealasaidh, as she had
before, stooping to help Gil drag the box into a corner. ‘My
mother was wisewoman at their birth, for all they were
Campbells.’ She stacked a folded plaid, two German flutes
and a bundle of music rapidly on top of the box. ‘Not that she would have withheld aid if their father had been the
devil himself,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Wisdom and a gift is both to be shared,’ said the
harper. He rose as feet crossed the outer room. ‘Ah, Mhic
Chaileann …’

The man in the doorway was, to Gil’s eye, the same man
he had questioned yesterday. He watched the formal
exchange of Gaelic, trying to gauge the mind of each
contestant. The gallowglass was pleased with himself
about something, and also dismayed by Gil’s presence,
though he hid it well. The harper, his great grief overlaid
by his greater dignity, was harder to read; beside him
Ealasaidh had a tight rein on her anger. She said suddenly,

‘We will be speaking Scots, in courtesy to Maister
Cunningham. What brings Eoghan Campbell to this
door?’

Gil, startled to find she remembered his name, almost
missed the man’s slight recoil.

‘It iss a word from Maister Sempill,’ he said cautiously.
‘It iss to say that he is in grief at the death of his wife, and
iss wishing her things back for a remembrance. That is the
word from Maister Sempill.’

Ealasaidh appeared to be silenced by rage. Mclan
inclined his head.

‘I hear Maister Sempill’s word,’ he said formally. ‘I will
consider of my answer.’

‘Euan Campbell,’ said Gil. The dark-browed face turned
to him. ‘Did you bring a message to Bess Stewart from
Maister Sempill on May Day evening?’

‘Of course he did!’ hissed Ealasaidh.

‘Let him answer for himself,’ said Gil. ‘There is not only
a man of law here, there is a harper. He will speak the
truth, will you not, Euan?’

‘Yes,’ said the gallowglass, in some discomfort.

‘Then answer me,’ said Gil.

The man took a deep breath. ‘I did so,’ he admitted.

‘What was the message?’

‘That she should be meeting him outside the south door
of St Mungo’s after Compline, in a matter of money. Her
money.’

Gil considered the man for a moment. Out in the yard a
child wailed and was hushed, and the harper turned his
head to listen.

‘Did you speak the message in Scots?’ Gil asked. ‘Or in
Ersche?’

Something unreadable crossed the narrow face.

‘Of course he was speaking Gaelic at her!’ said Ealasaidh
impatiently. ‘She had the two tongues as well as any in the
land, what else would he be speaking?’

‘Is that right?’ Gil said. The man nodded. ‘Tell us what
you said to her. Say it again in Ersche - in Gaelic.’

Euan’s eyes shifted, from Gil, to the harper standing
isolated in darkness, to Ealasaidh’s vengeful countenance.
After a pause, he spoke. Ealasaidh listened, snapped a
question, listened to the answer. There was a short, acrimonious discussion, which ended when Ealasaidh turned
to Gil.

‘The word he is bringing from Sempill is just as he is
saying,’ she reported. ‘But she asked him how she could
trust John Sempill, and he, fool and Campbell that he is,
promised to protect her while she spoke with Sempill and
see her back here.’

Gil, unable to assess this, said to give himself time, ‘Why
did Maister Sempill think it was your brother who took the
message?’

‘He is never telling us apart,’ said the gallowglass.

‘They were forever playing at being the one or the other,’
said Ealasaidh in disgust. “There is only me and Mairead
their sister can tell them apart now, and she is married to
a decent man and living in Inveraray.’

‘And I,’ said the harper. ‘It was this one came with the
message on Monday. I know the voice.’

‘Sorrow is on me,’ said the gallowglass, ‘that ever
I crossed your door on such an errand.’

They went off into Ersche again, a rapid exchange between Ealasaidh and Campbell. Gil, watching, felt the
man was still hiding something. The harper suddenly
spoke, a few quick words which silenced the other two,
and turning to Gil he said, ‘Maister Cunningham, have
you more-to ask?’

‘I have,’ said Gil.

‘Then ask it, so Eoghan Campbell can go about his lord’s
business.’

Gil, thanking him as one would a colleague, found himself exchanging bows with a blind man.

‘Euan,’ he said, ‘tell me how Mistress Stewart went up
the High Street on May Day evening.’

‘Chust like any other,’ said the man blankly.

‘Did she follow you, or walk beside you? Did you talk?
Was she apprehensive? Was she worried about meeting her
husband,’ he amended. ‘You may answer me in Gaelic.’

Ealasaidh said something sharp, and Euan spoke briefly,
shrugging.

‘He says,’ she translated, ‘that Bess walked up the street
beside him, talking in the Gaelic about the weather, and
about where he was coming from, and she did not seem
low in her courage at all in any way.’

The harper made a small sound in his throat. Ealasaidh
flicked a glance at him, and added, ‘What else do you wish
to ask, Maister Cunningham?’

‘When you got to St Mungo’s,’ said Gil, ‘what then?’

The gallowglass had left Bess Stewart in the clump of
hawthorns and gone into the kirk to report to his lord. She
had been standing, quite composed, with her plaid over
her head. He had never seen her .again.

‘Was there anyone else in the kirkyard?’ Gil asked. The
sly grin predicted the answer he got.

‘Therewass two youngsters, away to the burn from
where she was, sitting in the grass, though I am thinking
they would shortly be lying in it.’

‘What were they wearing?’ asked Gil hopefully.

‘Oh, I would not be knowing that. The light was going.
Chust clothes like any others. The boy’s hose was stript.’

‘Just now,’ said Gil, ‘before you came up this stair, what
did the neighbour across the way tell you?’

‘Oh, nothing at all,’ said the gallowglass airily, but Gil
had not missed the flicker of self-satisfaction.

‘It took a long while to say nothing,’ he observed.
Ealasaidh said something sharp. She got a sulky answer,
then a defiant one; she glanced threateningly at the small
harp, and there was an immediate reaction.

‘Mistress nic Lachlann and I were chust passing the time
of day, and I was asking her would himself be at home
chust now, and she was telling me who would be in the
house.’

‘And who did she tell you would be in the house?’ Gil
prompted.

`Himself, and herself,’ said the man, nodding, ‘and a
visitor, which I am thinking would be Maister Cunningham.’

‘And what more did she tell you?’

‘Oh, nothing of any importance. Nothing at all, at all.’

Gil moved over to look out of the window.

‘So you promised to protect Mistress Stewart; he said,
his back to the man, ‘and to see her safe home. Why, then,
did you not search for her after the service?’

‘I thought she was gone home without speaking to the
maister.’ There was what seemed like genuine feeling in
the voice. ‘He was in the kirk, under my eye, from when
I left her in the trees till he went out again and found she
wass not there. I thought that was protection enough!’ he
burst out. ‘I did not know -‘ He broke off. Gil turned, to
look into patches of green dazzle.

‘What did you not know?’ he asked. Ealasaidh had to
repeat the question; she got a reluctant, muttered answer,
which she translated baldly:

‘That he would use witchcraft.’

‘Do you think it witchcraft, Maister Cunningham?’ asked
the harper.

‘I don’t believe in witchcraft,’ said Gil apologetically. ‘Do
you?’

‘What do you call the power of a harper?’

‘Ah, that is different. Anyway, he had no evidence,’ Gil
said, watching the gallowglass cross the yard. ‘Supposition
is not sufficient. I do not think that John Sempill killed her,
though I do not yet know who did. What worries me is
how much he learned from your neighbour. Where is the
bairn?’

‘If Nancy took him to her mother’s,’ said Ealasaidh, he
is up the next stair.’

‘I thought as much.’ Gil turned away from the window.
‘Euan has just gone up that stair. Ealasaidh -‘

The door was swinging behind her. When Gil caught up,
she was just wading into a very promising argument three
turns up the next stair, where Euan was holding his
ground with difficulty against two kerchiefed women.

‘No, I will not tell you where she’s gone. I don’t know
who you are, but my Nancy’s none of your business, and
less of your master’s. Be off with you before I call the
serjeant on you, pestering decent women -‘

‘The bairn-‘s -‘

‘The bairn’s none of hers, and everyone in this pend
knows that.’

‘I never said -‘

‘Bel!’ said Ealasaidh. ‘This one iss from Bess’s man!’

‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ said Bel. ‘See me the besom,
sister. I’ll Where’s Nancy you, you great -‘

Gil flattened himself against the wall as the gallowglass
broke and ran, followed by shrieks of laughter, and loud
and personal comments. As the sound of his feet diminished down the stairs the three women nodded in
satisfaction.

‘So where is Nancy?’ he asked. The satisfaction vanished, and two hostile stares were turned on him. He was
aware of sudden sympathy with Euan.

‘It iss the man of law from St Mungo’s,’ Ealasaidh
explained. ‘Looking for proof it was Sempill killed her.’

‘Looking for proof of who killed her,’ Gil amended. She
shrugged, and turned to the two women.

‘So where is Nancy? And the bairn?’

‘She went off this morning. Less than an hour since, it
would be, wouldn’t it, sister?’

‘Who with?’ Gil said patiently. ‘Did she go alone?’

‘Oh, I never saw. We were no here, were we, Kate?’

‘We were out at the market,’ amplified Kate. ‘After
Prime.’

‘We came back, and she was gone, and the bairn’s gear
with her. Tail-clouts, horn spoon, coral -‘

‘And her plaid.’

‘Has she left no word?’ asked Gil. The two women
turned kerchiefed heads to one another, then to him, wearing identical expressions of surprise.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘She’s likely at her married sister’s. Isa has a bairn ages
with your wee one.’

‘And where does her sister live?’ Gil persisted.

‘On the High Street. Isn’t it no, sister?’

‘In Watson’s Pend,’ agreed the other one. ‘Second stair.
You’ll not miss it.’

Ealasaidh turned on her heel and hurried down the
stairs, her deerskin shoes making little sound on the stone.
Gil, with a hasty word of thanks, followed her. In the yard
she hesitated, glancing up at her own windows.

‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I must know the bairn is safe. But
to leave him yet again -‘

‘I will go,’ Gil offered, ‘and send you word when I have
found the bairn.’

She looked from his face to the windows and back.
‘What word? I cannot read Scots.’

‘I will send that I have found the harpstring,’ he said
quietly.

Her face lit up in that savage smile. ‘Mac Iain and I will
wait your messenger,’ she said, and strode into the mouth
of her own stair.

The market was past its climax when Gil reached the corner of the Fishergait. Many stallholders were beginning
to pack up by now, and the wives and maidservants of the
burgh were beginning to turn for home with their purchases, but the bustle, the hopeful whine of the beggars,
the cries of fishwives and pedlars, still spread out from the
Mercat Cross.

Gil made his way through the noisy scene with difficulty. Here and there a little group of giggling girls whispered and huddled. Beyond the Tolbooth he saw, quite
clearly, both the gallowglass brothers, in deep and separate
conversation with more young women. A little further on,
James Campbell of Glenstriven, in a green velvet hat of
identical cut to John Sempill’s cherry one, was laughing
with another girl. Gil hurried on, avoiding all these as well
as raucous attempts to sell him eggs, cheeses, ham, a clutch
of goose eggs warranted to hatch, and a toebone of the
infant St Catherine.

‘The infant St Catherine?’ he repeated, pausing despite
himself. ‘What did she walk on when she was grown?’

‘Ah, your worship,’ said the pedlar, leering at him. ‘Who
am I to say what the holy woman walked on? Sure, and if
her feet touched the earth at all it was only to bless it.’

‘I should report you,’ said Gil. ‘Put that one away and
find something more probable to cry, before the Consistory
finds you.’